Record-breaking heat hits Northeast; 97 degrees at airport

NEW YORK (AP) — A record-breaking blast of summer-like weather is hitting New York and other parts of the Northeast, squashing memories of a cold, rainy spring.

The National Weather Service said New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport recorded a sweltering 97 degrees on Monday, breaking its 1973 record of 95 degrees.

New York's LaGuardia Airport reached 95 degrees, topping its 1988 record of 92 degrees. Central Park tied its previous record of 93 degrees, set in 1973.

Temperatures were a bit lower on Long Island, where Islip reached 91 degrees, topping its 1988 record by 3 degrees.

In Philadelphia, excessive heat forced the city's public schools to close early on Tuesday.

"Oppressive is the only way to describe the heat," said Ben Kingham, 31, who was walking his little Pomeranian dog, Libby, in a Manhattan park early Monday evening.

Kingham, originally from London, was wearing flip-flops with his dress pants and dress shirt and had wanted to take the dog out earlier but said the heat was "mental, absolutely horrible."

The high temperatures are the result of a large high pressure system over Bermuda, which is pumping heat and humidity into the area, according to Joe Pollina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Upton, Long Island.

"The heat's been brutal. It's snowing where we're from right now," Schorer said. "We cool off in the subways and then we tackle the heat when we come out."

Philadelphia missed setting a temperature record on Monday by one degree; it hit 94 degrees in the city, just shy of the record of 95 set in 2015.

Dean Iovino, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey, said there is a heat advisory for Tuesday for the urban corridor stretching from Wilmington, Delaware, through Philadelphia and north to Trenton, New Jersey.

He said there also is a heat advisory for Tuesday for the Newark and Jersey City areas of New Jersey.